Top 50 tools for local SEO marketing

Local search engine optimization is critical for any business looking to expand their customer base. From presence on mobile apps, to showing up when a user is at home doing product research, local search generates web traffic, and in turn, traffic generates customers. A successful business identify the top tools for local SEO that are going be easy and efficient to use, while still yielding useful information. These are the most relevant tools to get the job done, or at least get it started:

List of the Top 50 Tools for Local SEO

1) Whitespark

“Get noticed and let Whitespark do the work for you. We help local businesses increase their visibility and make it easy for clients and search engines to find you online.”
An great tool to find local citations of your business on the web. It does require a quick sign up to create a free account, which allows up to three searches per day.
http://www.whitespark.ca

2) BrightLocal.com – Local Search Rank Checker

“The easy way to track your local & organic search rankings in Google, Yahoo & bing”
You get a 30-day free trial. During this period, BrightLocal will track key search terms across localized search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing — and show you how your keywords are performing in Google blended searches.
http://www.brightlocal.com/seo-tools/local-search-rank-checker

3) GeoRanker

“The future of SERP tracking is all about local.” GeoRanker uses IP based technology to show you where you rank for specific search terms in over 2,000 cities worldwide. This is valuable information if you have multiple locations, and are trying to target specific markets for your products and/or services.
https://www.georanker.com

4) UpCity Free Website Analyzer – Local SEO Report Card

UpCity provides clean, easy to understand report cards for search terms in Google. This free tool allows you to enter your most important key term and your location, then displays a visual representation of your score.
http://upcity.com/free-tools/local-seo-report-card

5) Facebook Graph Search

Graph Search brings opportunities to have your business discovered. Add a Facebook page for your business, and use it to help prospects find you through social media.
https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch

6) 5minutesite.com – Local PPC AdWords and Keyword List Creator

5minutesite.com provides a free tool that generates targeted keyword lists specifically for business owners looking for local web traffic.
http://www.5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php

7) LocalVox — Local SEO Tool

“Did you know that 60% of directories have errors in them?”
LocalVox.com allows you to enter your website’s URL and then it reports which local business directories and search engines you appear. You can see your published addresses in one place, making sure visitors can easily find you.
http://localvox.com/free-seo-report

8) GetListed.org

“Manage your online business listings with a single click.”
GetListed.org — now owned by SEOmoz — checks the major local search directories, verifies you’re listed, and makes it easy to fix issues, and claim listings of your business that you haven’t yet.
https://moz.com/local

9) Google Mobile: Test Your Site

“Make Your Website Work Across Multiple Devices”
This site tester may not seem like a local search engine tool, but in the end, if a potential customer is using a mobile device to look for stores near them, your website needs to be prepared to deal with mobile browsers.
http://www.google.com/think/multiscreen

10) Local Citation Finder

“Discover where to list your business for better local search rankings.”
This is a good platform especially for businesses that don’t have a robust Web presence. It gives SEO professionals the opportunity to identify quality citations that are being missed. With a free version available, users can choose from a variety of options that best suit their needs.
https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder

11) Google Places Category Tool

If you’re looking to expand categories for your local SEO, this is a great tool that helps categorize your SEO keywords into different sections. It’s a basic tool, but it’s free.
http://www.google.com/local/business

12) Wordstream

“Get thousands of keyword suggestions from a constantly updated database.” The Wordstream Free Keyword Tool offers thousands of keyword ideas from a huge database of a trillion unique searches.
http://www.wordstream.com/free-keyword-tools

13) Keyword Eye Basic

“Keywords. Visualized. Simplified.”
Keyword Eye Basic is a visual keyword suggestion tool, very useful for brainstorming sessions.
http://www.keywordeye.com

14) Keyword Tool

Even though specific for video, the YouTube Keyword Tool is great for keyword research for all kinds of content, not just video.
http://keywordtool.io/youtube

15) Übersuggest

Übersuggest uses the “Suggest” data from Google and others. An awesome tool for developing long-tail phrases.
http://ubersuggest.org

16) Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool

The Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool outputs anchor text diversity. Words or phrases that are potentially over-optimized are highlighted for manual review.
http://www.removeem.com/ratios.php

17) Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML

Convert Word Docs to HTML with this tool,documents created in Microsoft Word, Writer, and other word processing software are transformed to a web-friendly format.
http://word2cleanhtml.com

18)  Copyscape

Copyscape is a free plagiarism checker. The software lets you enter a URL to detect duplicate content and to verify the originality of your content.
http://www.copyscape.com

19) Xenu’s Link Sleuth

Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a PC based spidering software that checks websites for broken links. It performs validation of text links, frames, images, local image maps, and backgrounds.
http://download.cnet.com/Xenu-s-Link-Sleuth/3000-10248_4-10020826.html

20) Robots.txt Generator

Robots.txt Generator is a utility that makes the creation of robots.txt files easy.
http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/robots.txt

21) Robots.txt Checker

Robots.txt Checker is a “validator” that will analyze the syntax of a robots.txt file to verify the format is correct.
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml

22) URI Valet

Use the URI Valetto view total number of  http requests, time to download, object details, document internal links, and external links along with verifying server headers for each one.
http://urivalet.com

23) Title and Description Optimization Tool

This tool gives insight as to what the top ranking competitors are using for titles and descriptions. One of the best of its kind.
http://seobin.org

24) Image SEO Tool

Input a URL and this tool checks the image name, alt attribute, and dimensions. Alerts are given if a potential problem is discovered.
http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/alt

25) Schema Creator

The Schema Creator tool is the easiest way to get started creating HTML with schema.org microdata.
http://schema-creator.org

26) Google Snippet Preview

The snippet that appears in Google Search is usually taken from these meta tags. The Google Snippet Preview tool helps visualize and optimize what is displayed to searchers.
http://www.snippetoptimizer.net

27) Structured Data Testing Tool

The Structured Data Testing Tool verifies Schema.org or any other structured data type markup.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

28) XML Sitemap Generators

XML Sitemap Generators create “web-type” XML sitemap and URL-list files (other formats may be supported).
http://code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators

29) XML Sitemap Inspector

XML Sitemap Inspector validates your sitemap, repairs errors, and pings all search engines.
http://sitemapinspector.com

30) Pingdom Website Speed Tool

This tests the load time of a page, analyzes it, and reports bottlenecks if any.
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt

31) Fiddler

Fiddler is a debugger which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet.
http://fiddler2.com

32) Microsoft Free SEO Toolkit

The SEO Toolkit with its detailed analysis and search engine friendly suggestions helps improve the relevance of your website in search results right away.
http://www.microsoft.com/web/seo

33) Review Handout Generator

This tool from Whitespark enables you to enter your business data and create a PDF handout that can be given to customers at the time of service, with the goal of reviewing you online.
http://www.whitespark.ca/review-handout-generator

34) Offline Conversion Tracker

Empower your phone staff to collect “how did you hear about us?” data and enter it into this form during phone calls. The tool fires the data over to Google Analytics using UTM tracking parameters, so that the data is tracked in Analytics as well.
https://www.whitespark.ca/offline-conversion-tracker

35) USPS ZIP Code Tool

Inconsistencies in address data can cause problems in Google rankings. Thanks to this tool, you can be totally secure that you’re publishing your correct, official zip code.
https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction%21input.action

36) OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool

Especially helpful when listing your business at ExpressUpdate, this tool lets you enter keywords to determine under which official category your business falls. If you don’t know your Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) number, which must be entered into the tool along with your keyword, you can find a list of numbers here.
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sicsearch.html

37) Census.gov Tools

Need to know more about the population and economics of a client’s city in the USA? You can find a ton of useful statistical information from the census to help you fine tune your campaigns.
http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp

38)  Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking helps you search both generic and local keywords for your site, since it accumulates data from Google Adwords, Google Webmaster API, Google Suggest, Word Tracker, Yahoo API, and more.
http://www.advancedwebranking.com

39) SEO Audit Tool

Scan any landing page or website URL to see how optimized it is for your targeted key phrase.
http://www.51blocks.com/tools/seo-audit

40) Google Alerts

As a local business, you are bound to receive online reviews and feedback from your customers. To get alerts from every brand mention that occurs on these review sites, you can setup a Google Alert like this “keyword” site:xyz.com.
http://www.google.com/alerts

41) Rank Tracker

With this rank tracking tool you can track your local keywords SERP rankings in 326 search engines, store historical data of your SERP rankings, create progress graphs and helps get keyword suggestion.
http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/download.html

42) GetFiveStars

This tool is useful for local e-commerce and  people-oriented businesses that will profit from positive reviews. This tool gives you a system where you can ask your customer for feedback, monitor the reviews, and embed them as testimonials on your site with Google-friendly search snippets and manage multiple businesses and locations as you expand.
http://www.getfivestars.com/home

43) Google’s Gadgets Driving Directions

Google Gadgets provides this free store locator that gives driving directions to your local business from the user’s location. Although, this tool does not directly affect your local SEO, it may help in bringing in more customers to your physical store who will then leave back a positive online review on a third-party site, hence enhancing your local SEO.
http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/driving_directions.xml

44) Yext

Other than being a business citation finder tool this tool also offers to list your sites on various other business listing sites that your business is not listed in. The tool also provides review monitoring and offers local search analytics to track your business’s local search performance.
http://www.yext.com

45) Local SEO Checklist

The Local SEO Checklist gives you a simple step-by-step checklist that you can use to better track your optimization efforts. The most interesting thing about this tool is that it tracks your progress as you go, even if you close your browser and re-open it and as long as you don’t clear your browser cache.
http://localseochecklist.org

46) Google Structured Data Inspector

The Google Structured Data Testing Tool tells you what content on your website is marked, and reports errors that it may find in the way your schema-ed content is marked up. This is especially useful if you’ve done some work in the past, or parts of your website have schema that you’re not sure is being read and interpreted properly.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

47) Synup Listings Scan

The Synup software scans your business listing on over 100 local directories as well as different review sites to show you how you’re present. You can drill down to each listing to see exactly how you appear on each website:
http://synup.com

48)  Free Review Monitoring

FreeReviewMonitoring.com monitors your reviews on all the major review sites for free on a daily basis. It also sends out an email to you everyday with new reviews as they are crawled.
http://freereviewmonitoring.com

49)  Grade.us

Grade.us creates a simple review page that you can use to request reviews from your clients. Getting more reviews is an integral part of Local SEO and this tool comes in very handy for that. Unfortunately, the free version of Grade.us doesn’t include their review funnel functionality.
http://www.grade.us

50) Google AdWords Keywords Planner

Keyword Planner is like a workshop for building new Search Network campaigns or expanding existing ones. You can search for keyword and ad group ideas, get historical statistics, see how a list of keywords might perform, and even create a new keyword list by multiplying several lists of keywords together. A free AdWords tool, Keyword Planner can also help you choose competitive bids and budgets to use with your campaigns.
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner